★★★ (3 out of 4)
Bless me, reader, for I have sinned. It’s been 29 years since I last confessed to regarding “Happy Gilmore” as a balls-out comedy classic. Since then, elitist critics, unversed in the art of the mad fun of slob stupidity as practiced by Adam Sandler, shake their heads in horror when I tell them the Sand-man‘s current return on Netflix in “Happy Gilmore 2” is a cause for celebration. Many reviewers have caught up to the fact that Sandler is a first-rate actor, citing “Punch Drunk Love” and “Uncut Gems,” but offering any good words about 1996’s “Happy Gilmore” and “Billy Madison” the year before is tantamount to slumming in the lower depths of idiot farce.
I stand unrepentant. “Happy Gilmore 2” had me at hello or at least right during the opening voiceover when Happy—the hockey bruiser who found success in the gentler turf of golf—confessed to accidentally killing his wife Virginia (Julie Bowen) and the mother of their four sons and one daughter with a speeding bullet of a tee shot. How is that tragic death and Happy’s slide into alcoholism and bankruptcy even remotely funny? I guess you have to be there.
So be there as Sandler returns to his happy place where even angry tears and crippling depression must be laughed at if you don’t want to let them break you. Remember back to “Happy 1” when our hero clobbered the late, great TV gameshow host Bob Barker and quipped, “The price is wrong, bitch.” There’s a lot of that here.
This is Sandler's unique brand of comic anarchy. And it still looks good on him.
Not all the jokes land. They never did. But the ones that do are time-capsule worthy. In this sequel, unnoticeably directed by Kyle Newcheck, Sandler and his writing partner Tim Herlihy (they co-wrote the first film) spin the plot around Happy’s return to golf. The reason? He needs to pay $75,000 in annual tuition for his daughter Vienna, smartly played by the comic’s real daughter Sunny Sandler (wife Jackie also shows up), to attend ballet school in Paris.
That hooks him up with the so-called Maxi League run by evil creepy beardo Frank Manatee, nicely slimed by Benny Safdie who co-directed Sandler in “Uncut Gems.” This freakish “Dodgeball” take on golf, in which players cheat with forbidden hip surgery, can’t match the pro version that grounded the first “Happy” in a spectator sport that felt real. The laughs felt real, too. The new ones are mostly silly with only a seven hole course to stop players and spectators from yawning. Expect to be distracted by too many cameos from real golfers.
Speaking of surprises, Ben Stiller is a riot as the head of a 12-step program that Happy joins to his regret. And the great Christopher McDonald is back as Shooter McGavin, free at last after 30 years in an asylum to take on the disgraced golfer who put him there.
Rude jokes sneak in from all sides of “Happy Gilmore 2,” but the movie is unimaginable without Sandler, who plays Happy with nearly every flaw visible to the naked eye except the few festering with rage on the inside. There are several Sandler hits—I’m thinking “Big Daddy” and “50 First Dates”—where you can feel him wanting to be understood and liked. “Happy Gilmore 2” is not one of them. Rough stuff is wired into Happy’s game, be it hockey, golf or life. This is Sandler's unique brand of comic anarchy. And it still looks good on him.